“I often wish… that I could rid the world of the tyranny of facts. What are facts but compromises? A fact merely marks the point where we have agreed to let investigation cease.”

On the shining yards of heaven See a wider dawn unfurled. . . . The eternal slaves of beauty Are the masters of the world.

Have little care that Life is brief, And less that Art is long. Success is in the silences Though Fame is in the song.

I heard the spring light whisper Above the dancing stream, The world is made forever in likeness of a dream.

Love manifests itself in our bodies as instinctive craving, in our souls as devotion, and in our minds as pride.

Over the shoulders and slopes of the dune I saw the white daisies go down to the sea, A host in the sunshine, an army in June, The people God sends us to set our heart free.

The greatest joy in nature is the absence of man.

There is a passion for perfection which you will rarely see fully developed; but you may note this fact, that in successful lives it is never wholly lacking.

There is only one way in the world to be distinguished. Follow your instinct! Be yourself, and you’ll be somebody. Be one more blind follower of the blind, and you will have the oblivion you desire.

The first need of being is endurance; to endure with gladness if we can, with fortitude in any event.

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood- Touch of manner, hint of mood; And my heart is like a rhyme, With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

It is not being out at heels that makes a man discontented, it is being out at heart. To be contented is to be good friends with yourself.

The tree of liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants.

Any ideal system is its own worst enemy, and as soon as you start to implement these visions of grandeur, they just fall apart and turn into a complete tyranny.

Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.

Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.

Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.

Some have said that it is not the business of private men to meddle with government–a bold and dishonest saying, which is fit to come from no mouth but that of a tyrant or a slave.

Men are cowards before women until they become tyrants.

A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children.